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Following an extensive refit, popular charter yacht Starship goes from trendy to timeless.
by Kate Simpson
photography by H. Shaw McCutcheon
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04/01/2005
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| Van Mill Shipyard 143 |  |
When James Esshaki purchased the well-known charter yacht
Starship, he knew she was tired. He thought he would freshen up the main
deck, reposition the master bed and upgrade the galley and crew quarters. But as
work got under way, the project snowballed into a massive, comprehensive refit
that left no corner of the motor yacht untouched.
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"One thing led to another and the next thing you knew, the
whole boat
was torn apart," said Esshaki. "It was my wife who said, ‘Let’s do it
right.’ It wasn’t actually decided, but the refit got to a stage where
there was
no point stopping."
 The helicopter was not pivotal in Starship’s
sale, but Bernadette and James Esshaki have grown to love its
convenience. (Click image to enlarge)
Launched as Avviva from Holland’s Van Mill Shipyard in
1988, the yacht did a stint in Japan as Topaz before being bought by
yachting luminary Bernie Little. His futuristic Starship marketing
concept was a hit with the charter crowd. Adding a helideck to carry a Bell
206B-3 JetRanger secured her status, making the 143-footer unique in her size
range.
Due to the yacht’s fame, Esshaki decided to retain her name
despite the
extreme makeover. Starship, with her elegant new interior and
enlarged deck spaces, truly is now the star of the show.
The
refit was completed in just over a year at the Lauderdale
Marine Center
in Fort Lauderdale under the direction of project manager Steve
Feldman
and interior design firm Claudette Bonville & Associates. Each room
aboard was gutted and redone."If you had asked us if we could have done
that in
a year, I would have said no," said Bonville. "We pleasantly
surprised
ourselves. I don’t think anything was saved. We took it back
to bare metal."
Dominated by gray pearl lacquer, the old décor featured
contemporary furnishings set between curvy bulkheads. Now throughout
the entire
yacht, warm makoré is the backdrop for traditional styling,
which embraces a
subdued mixture of rich textures and fabrics chosen in
consultation with
Bernadette Esshaki.
Top: Before. Photograph by Chris Moorhouse. Bottom: Starship’s main salon is now the picture of elegance. Note the onyx
columns. The old side entrances have been transformed into display cabinets for
delicate Lalique crystal. (Click images to enlarge)
The guest accommodations originally were slated to receive only
new
entertainment centers. That plan was scrapped in an "oh, what the hell"
moment and now basically everything is new, including the heads and
showers.
Instead of just repositioning the bed in the master stateroom,
the entire area
was torn out.
"There
was no halfway with Mr. Esshaki. He was very quick to
make decisions,
very definitive," said George Paturzo, Bonville’s project
manager. "It
was a pleasure working with a client who, when he decided to redo a
room, he redid the whole room. There was no cutting corners. We were
not forced
to live with certain things."
Top: Before. Photograph by Chris Moorhouse. Bottom: The dining room, located forward on the main deck, was the reason
Esshaki bought Starship. On most comparably sized yachts, this
is the master suite’s locale. But he preferred an arrangement where all the
staterooms are situated together in one area. (Click images to enlarge)
"On many occasions, when something did not turn out perfect, it
was torn apart and redone," added Esshaki.
Port and starboard entryways originally accessed
Starship’s main salon, which was divided into three distinctive areas.
Esshaki opted to open up the room. He pushed the aft bulkhead forward, giving
more space to the main aft deck, and abandoned the side entrances in favor of
electrically operated glass doors aft that visually extend the salon.
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